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2
The exhibits and lectures were of a high order and everyone did
their utmost to make the Health Week worthy of the Borough.
During the early part of the year, whilst a site at the Corner of Red
Cross and Union Streets was being excavated, a number of human
remains was unearthed, skulls and limb bones predominating. They
were found six feet below the surface, and descended to a depth of ten
feet. These bones were of considerable antiquity and were those of
persons from 25 years of age and upwards.
They were carefully placed and had undoubtedly been moved here
at some former period from another part of the site and re-interred in
this excavation and covered over at the time with a layer of lime
concrete several inches in thickness, in which some of the skulls and
bones were embedded, proving that the concrete had been put there
for the definite purpose of covering them in. Wherever excavation was
made bones were found, and the quantity actually brought to the surface
would represent about forty persons, and a greater number still remain.
The site on which these bones were found is described on old maps
of the district as the Crossbones Burial Ground, which was of considerable
extent, and covered a larger area than the present vacant site.
A licence was applied for to the Home Office to remove the said
remains, which was duly granted.
They were accordingly placed in wooden shells and re-interred in
the Church of England Ground, Brookwood Cemetery.
Later in the year human remains from under the Wesleyan Chapel
in Hankey Place were removed under licence of the Home Office by
the London County Council, under my supervision, to the Camberwell
New Cemetery at Honor Oak. The actual work was overlooked by
Inspector Ede, who paid in all 52 visits to the chapel and saw every
coffin or shell before removal. He also visited the cemetery.
The Vaults were below the entrances and chancel and were found to
contain lead coffins from which the wood coffins had fallen away. In
some cases the coffins had to be re-soldered.
The instructions of the Home Office were that each coffin should
be put into a pitch pine shell and surrounded by four inches of charcoal,
and these directions were carefully carried out.